feague

Another olympics drug story, this time not the athletes, though.

Four horses involved in the Olympic show jumping have tested positive for the banned substance capsaicin.

Capsaicin isn't some shady synthetic steroid. It's the substance in chillies that makes them feel hot, and administering such things to horses is not a new idea.

There is a largely disused term - and I hereby present you with Word Of The Day - 'feague'.

It refers to the practice of putting raw ginger or formerly, it is said, a live eel up a horse's arse in order to make it lively and carry its tail well prior to auction.

Imagine it happening to you. You know it'd work, don't you?

If you have $400 to spare, there's a product from uber-hot chilli sauce specialist Blair Lazar, Blair's 16 Million Reserve. It's not a chilli sauce at all, it's pure capsaicin. What you get is a few specks of white stuff in a jar, the product of refining several tonnes of fresh chillies. The man himself tried it and says

It was like having your tongue hit with a hammer. Man, it hurt. My tongue swelled up and it hurt like hell for days.

And that was only his tongue. I daren't imagine the aftermath of a feaguing.

scargill, monbiot and what works

The campaign against coal runs the risk of being a back-door for the nuclear power lobby, and vice versa. One of the coolest things about the first climate camp at Drax coal-fired power station was its debut action blockading Hartlepool nuclear power station.

The Kingsnorth campaign has brought the coal back to the top of the climate agenda. A surprising recent development is George Monbiot's declaration that stopping coal is so important that he's shifted position on nuclear power.

I have now reached the point at which I no longer care whether or not the answer is nuclear. Let it happen, as long as its total emissions are taken into account, we know exactly how and where the waste is to be buried, how much this will cost and who will pay, and there is a legal guarantee that no civil nuclear materials will be used by the military. We can no longer afford any rigid principle but one: that the harm done to people living now and in the future must be minimised by the most effective means, whatever they might be.

Genuine folk hero Arthur Scargill picked Monbiot up on his nuclear ambivalence with a pro-coal piece in the Guardian. He talks of 'carbon capture that would remove all CO2', and reiterates it in an audio interview, saying we can 'reduce the CO2 emissions, in my view, to zero'.

He's saying we should use British coal for our power needs, including making our gas and oil from coal.

Coal-to-liquid is staggeringly energy intensive, but even if all the carbon emitted in production were captured at the plant, we burn the fuel in vehicles. Cars don't have carbon capture.

Worse, the CO2 emissions from coal-liquids are more than twice the emissions from oil fuels. And even with carbon capture, emissions would be 4% more than petrol!

Much of what Scargill thinks is politically far-fetched. He has a firm belief that it can all work if we reopen Britain's deep pits, stop importing coal and bring mining and power into public ownership.

I've no problem with unlikely politics. A business-as-usual approach is a commitment to runaway climate change. Holding out against all forms of radical social change is not far short of a conspiracy to genocide.

However, the vision for that change has to be rooted within the realm of the possible. Emissions need to be declining well within the next couple of decades. We can't wait for miracle breakthroughs, we need to work with what we've got.

The technology Scargill speaks of doesn't exist, and nobody apart from him is saying it will. There will be no 100% carbon capture. There will be no carbon free coal-liquids. It's a daydream that in practical terms is indistinguishable from the idea that nuclear fission/ unlimited magnetic field energy/ shapeshifting lizards who organised 9-11 will come along and save us from climate catastrophe.

Scargill's parting shot to Monbiot is cute

I challenge George Monbiot to test out which is the most dangerous fuel - coal or nuclear power. I am prepared to go into a room full of CO2 for two minutes, if he is prepared to go into a room full of radiation for two minutes.

However, it's as off the point as his fantasy of zero-carbon coal liquid. Nobody's claiming that CO2's threat is from a direct assault on human respiration.

Concentrating on a what-works approach is, Monbiot claims, what's led him to teeter toward a pro-nuclear stance. On Newsnight he reiterated his conditions, the need to be clear 'who' will pay and 'who' will be liable. I note he doesn't offer suggestions of any answers.

The fair thing, and a clearer position, is to say that the energy company should pay and be liable. Not only for decommissioning but for the safe disposal of the waste, its management (and all liabilities in the event of accident) for as long as the materials remain hazardous. As that would be millennia, it would price nuclear out of the market at a stroke. (Incidentally, the same conditions should apply to any company intending to store CO2, including the costs of monitoring and liability for all eternity).

We don't just need deep cuts in emissions, we need them fast. Nuclear power stations would take a long time to plan and build even if they bucked the industry trend and were built on schedule (the nuclear power station under construction in Finland, less than three years into construction, is already two and a half years behind schedule and 25% over-budget).

So even ignoring the issue of radioactive waste or the way it locks us into a heavily militarised society for the next century and beyond, the real point - that one rigid principle Monbiot speaks of - is that we'd not get any real carbon benefits in the next decade or two.

Even beyond that, it's no great shakes. The Sustainable Development Commission note that replacing the nuclear stations scheduled for decommissioning and then having a huge new-build programme to double the UK's nuclear capacity would still only deliver an 8% emissions cut by 2034.

In announcing the results of the government's 2003 Energy Review, the Trade and Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt said that it would have been 'foolish' to decide on a new generation of nuclear power stations 'because that would have guaranteed that we would not make the necessary investment and effort in both energy efficiency and in renewables'.

Money spent on nuclear is money not spent on other things - things that deliver quicker cuts for less money and negate the need for either new nukes or new coal.

unchain the olympics

The Olympics makes concessions to it being brave pure amateurs when it's nothing of the sort. People can't get paid but they can get sponsored. Sponsored to the tune of bulging sacks of money that cover full-time training and a comfy life besides. That, quite clearly, is getting paid. The sponsors know it, the athletes know it, the Olympic committee know it, we know it, and everyone knows that everyone knows.

Then these people spend all day every day training and eat insane diets. The regime they live under fits most definitions of self-harm and, quite arguably, torture. Yet they're not allowed to take any of a special list of performance enhancing drugs. Why the hell not?

Surely it'd be a lot more interesting if we allowed open payment and permitted all drugs. The principle of the Games is to see what extremes of sporting achievement humanity is capable of. Let's stop restraining it then, let's see what people can really do. If they want to fuck themselves up let them be properly compensated.

And let's not have any false claims that it'd be unfair on the athletes. We watch people fucking themselves all the time. Most peoples favourite bits of motor racing are the spectacular crashes. It's no different to the way we enjoy Pete Docherty's life, except that athletes would be much more deliberate, eyes-open and voluntary about it.

Sure, some people would complain, so let's have two Games, a clean one and an anything-goes one. Then watch as all the complainers slyly watch the dirty Olympics too, because they're the most passionate about seeing great sporting prowess in action. Who wouldn't want to see someone run a hundred metres in four seconds or lob a shot putt half a mile?

The dirty Olympics would have by far the bigger audience, and therefore bring a concomitant rise in advertising revenue, prestige for the host nation and all the other reasons to do the Games. Athletes get to truly excel, we get to gape at a two minute mile. It's a total win-win.

The clean Olympics would soon wither and die off, for the same reason Manchester United sell out 76,000 tickets a week yet nobody can even name a player in their reserves team.

But just cut the fucking target shooting out of the Olympics. That is not a sport.

With other target things like archery there's a tensing of the bow, but with target shooting the tensing is done unalterably and mechanically by cocking the gun. The only skill is in pointing an object in the right direction. It's operating a simple machine with no physical exercise. I can't see any reason to include target shooting that isn't a better reason to include vacuum cleaning.

hush the many, 14 october

A while back I recommended Hush The Many's single Revolve, just writing off the top of my head, saying

Fucking hell, this band are the real deal.

As so often with early records of a band's career, the recorded stuff doesn't properly capture their live prowess. They are one of the great live bands to see, absolutely mesmerising. Sensitive yet epic, brooding, tender, mysterious, searing, captivating. Imagine if Tim Buckley was writing and playing in Placebo and you're more or less there. Now add a cello.

This new single keeps me coming back over and over, while it's on it makes the world just stop.

Gorgeous, compelling visionary stuff, it's playing live where they really take off. They're doing a one-off gig on Tuesday 14 October at the Scala in London.

Ticketless tickets are 8 quid. If you want actual paper tickets, they're a tenner each from the Scala.

the temple of bullshit

This year's Camp for Climate Action kicks off tomorrow. In the run-up to last year's, there was an attempt to injunct the camp. I was in court for a lot of it.

Being in the High Court was such a bizarre experience. The whole place is one giant temple of bullshit.

The grand building looks like some 16th century palace even though it's barely a hundred years old.



The courtroom is edged with leather-bound volumes of law reports and solicitors journals going back a century. Does anyone ever read them? Yeah right. They're just there to impose, to glower with a feeling of importance. And, on inspection, to provide somewhere for bluebottles to die and have their remains lie undisturbed as they fossilise.

Then everyone who speaks in there talks in that accent. It defies on of the basic rules of language in that it's not from anywhere. That slow haughty prim tone, beyond BBC but not quite the Queen. Nowhere on earth can people say 'we talk like that round here'.

Interestingly, when Timothy Lawson-Cruttenden (the chief lizard seeking the injunction on behalf of British Airports Authority) gets narked his voice reverts to something a lot more Cockney barrow-boy.

Then there's the way hours of discussion comes down to definitions of words and tiny irrelevancies that have nothing to do with what either the prosecution nor the defence really came in there for.

The Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999 makes provision for the removal of judges' wigs and gowns so children giving evidence won't feel so intimidated. This is a clear admission that these things are intimidating, then. Of course they are. The whole place is designed to be intimidating. The way the judges sit very high up in very big chairs so we know who's the most important, the way us mere mortals can't ever speak directly unless spoken to.

But most amazing was that coat of arms. It's the usual British lion and unicorn thing. Loads of countries use top predators as their symbol - mad enough in itself - but taking a top predator that's not even from your continent and putting it next to a fucking unicorn? There was the judge, sat right in front of a life-size unicorn. If you can call something life-size that has never lived.

That was unquestionably the greatest proof of the bullshit and more importantly, the power the place has to intimidate all who come before it. The focal point of the room is a great big, 3D, carved, varnished and polished My Little Pony watching over the proceedings, and nobody's laughing.

give me freedom or give me products

Several years ago my companero Mahalia suggested a one-size-fits-all way of subvertising billboards. In the style of the government health warnings on the bottom of tobacco adverts, run a poster saying 'WARNING: They're only after your money'. It'd work on well over 90% of billboards.

By the same token, this splendid graffiti on Top Shop in Southport could work across the town centres of the world.

london's hydrogen buses

London was one of nine European cities to take part in the Clean Urban Transport for Europe (CUTE) trial of hydrogen fuel-cell buses.

Because the buses emit nothing but water vapour, they were called ‘zero emission’. This is seriously misleading, because whilst they have no exhaust gas except steam, they are responsible for an increase in carbon emissions.

The front page of CUTE's website declares ‘This public transport system will contribute to the reduction of overall CO2 emissions’(1). It will do nothing of the sort. I am no professional on these matters, but I have endeavoured to use credible, published sources for my figures, including damning ones from CUTE themselves.

The London trial showed fuel consumption of 23.9kg per 100km(2). That’s 4.2km/kg.

There are several ways to make the hydrogen required.

Hydrogen from natural gas

The cheapest and most common way of making hydrogen is from natural gas. This hydrogen is actually as much of a fossil fuel as diesel.

Manufacturing hydrogen from natural gas emits 9.1 kg CO2 per kg of hydrogen(3).

9,100g divided by 4.2 km = 2167g/km to make hydrogen gas from natural gas.

But it's not over, because at this stage all we've got is hydrogen gas. This has about one three-thousandth of the energy density of petrol. Assuming you're not going to have a fuel tank far bigger than the bus itself, you have to shrink it. It has to be either cooled to a liquid, or else it has to be compressed.

CUTE’s fuel cell buses used hydrogen compressed to a pressure of 350 bar(4), or 5,000psi.

It takes 2.6-3.6 kilowatt-hours of electricity to compress 1kg of hydrogen to 5,000psi(5). That electricity is made from a variety of sources, predominantly fossils. The UK grid CO2 emissions are 480g/kWh(6) .

2.6-3.6kWh x 480g/kWh = 1248g-1728g CO2 emissions per kg hydrogen compressed.

1248-1728g divided by 4.2km = 297-411g/km for compression.

This gives us an emissions total of 2167 + 297-411 = 2464-2578g/km for compressed hydrogen from natural gas.

A normal diesel bus emits around 640g/km(7). According to the US government's Argonne National Laboratory, exhaust emissions are only 78% of petrol's greenhouse gas emissions - 22% are emitted in the manufacturing process.

Assuming it's a similar figure for diesel as petrol, to be fair we should bump up that bus figure accordingly so that, as with the hydrogen, we're comparing total emissions for making and using the fuel.

That would make the emissions from a diesel bus - and this is the figure to keep bearing in mind - 821g/km.

CUTE’s own report on their trial says that when the hydrogen was made from natural gas, the buses had around two and a half times the climate impact of using normal diesel buses(8), which would make it around 1650g/km. This is somewhat different to the figures I’ve arrived at, but the thing that CUTE and I are both clear on is that the buses powered from hydrogen derived from fossil sources had a far worse climate impact than if they had been driving diesel buses.

CUTE hope that future efficiencies could save 25% of the fuel or more(9). Even if this were achieved it would be, even by their own figures, almost twice the CO2 emissions of a diesel bus.

The emissions for hydrogen from natural gas can only get worse with time. As we try to reduce our reliance on Russian gas, we have begun importing natural gas from the Middle East, liquefied so that it can be shipped. To be liquefied, gas must be cooled to –162 degrees and kept at or below that temperature for its entire journey, with the colossal energy consumption that implies. This means that emissions from using gas effectively increase.

Hydrogen from water using renewable electricity

Hydrogen needn’t be derived from fossil fuels. It can be made by electrolysis of water, using an electric current to split its hydrogen and oxygen components. CUTE say there was far less climate impact from the buses that used hydrogen made by electrolysis of water, using electricity from hydroelectric sources(10).

Firstly, I’m not sure if they’ve made the common error of assuming hydroelectricity is zero-emission. Hydroelectric dams are not the clean, green zero-emission sources they are often portrayed as. Submerged vegetation decays without oxygen, releasing methane, a greenhouse gas 25 times as potent as carbon dioxide(11). The amount released varies widely, from many times worse than burning coal to substantially less. At best it appears a dam gives one-tenth of the greenhouse effect of generating the same power thermally(12).

The World Commission on Dams – despite being paid by the largest funder of dams, the World Bank – said, ‘greenhouse gases are emitted for decades from all dam reservoirs in the boreal and tropical regions for which measurements have been made. This is in contrast to the widespread assumption that such emissions are zero. There is no justification for claiming that hydroelectricity does not contribute significantly to global warming.’(13)

But whether CUTE allowed for hydroelectricity’s climate impact or not is a side issue. The important thing is that there is still an enormous climate impact from making hydrogen from any sort of renewable electricity.

Our vehicles are currently powered by oil products. If we start making our vehicle fuel from electricity, we add to the total electricity demand. If the electricity we’re getting from renewables is taken for hydrogen production, it means the shortfall would have to be made up by more fossil electricity being generated elsewhere.

It’s rather like the way a biofuel company can proudly claim not to be cutting down forest for their plantations, yet their use of farmland displaces food production creating a knock-on effect and because of this someone somewhere is having to cut down a forest to grow food.

It could only stop having such a displacement effect if the whole grid were powered by renewables with enough spare capacity to start powering our vehicles. That would be a hell of lot of spare capacity; electrolysis is tremendously energy intensive. To replace our vehicle fuels with electrolysis hydrogen would take more than our entire present electricity consumption(14).

Do we think we can double electricity generation whilst doing away with fossil burning? Or should we stop considering hydrogen as a vehicle fuel?

Hydrogen from water using national grid electricity

As the vehicle fuel is creating additional demand for electricity and thereby displacing consumption, we should look at the emissions as if it were made from grid electricity.

A CUTE report says that it takes 5.1kWh of electricity to produce 1Nm3 of hydrogen(15), which weighs 0.09kg. This means that it takes just over 56kWh to make 1kg. (This is higher than I thought; I’ve seen 39kWh reliably quoted(16)). The UK grid CO2 emissions are 480g/kWh(17).

480g x 56kWh = 26,880g/CO2 per kg hydrogen.

26,880g divided by 4.2 km = 6400g/km to make the hydrogen gas from electrolysis.

That’s eight times the emissions from a normal bus.

(If we go with that 39kWh figure, it’s 4457g/km - still way above hydrogen from natural gas, let alone diesel, let alone any actual carbon savings).

CUTE did their own maths and calculated that grid electrolysis generates 4.71 times the emissions of a diesel bus(18), making it somewhere around 3,900g/km. There are several possible reasons for the discrepancy. Perhaps my figures aren’t reliable, perhaps theirs aren’t, perhaps the figure they have for grid emissions aren’t the same as the UK’s.

But despite there being a difference in precise figures, once again the principle is the same - the hydrogen bus is undoubtedly many times worse than the diesel models it is portrayed as being cleaner than.

The only scenario for sourcing in which CUTE don’t agree with this on is in their ‘hydrogen from renewable electricity’ example which, as I’ve already explained, ignores that fact of adding to electricity demand and so causing the same amount of electricity to be added to the grid.

If we aren’t going to use fossil-derived hydrogen but are only going to make it from electricity then the hydrogen is effectively just a way to store electricity. We take power from the grid, convert it to hydrogen, then on board the bus it’s used to make an electric charge to drive a motor. The hydrogen is effectively just a battery. That being so, surely there are more efficient and lower-carbon batteries available.

This would suggest that electric buses might well be worth looking in to. I know very little about these, although I have come across a report saying ‘fuel cell vehicles that operate on hydrogen made with electrolysis consume four times as much electricity per mile as similarly-sized battery electric vehicles’(19).

That claim comes from an avowed electric vehicle advocate, but still, it suggests that serious investigation of electric vehicles is merited. If we agree with CUTE’s figure of electrolysis hydrogen being 4.71 times worse than a diesel bus, then a system that uses a quarter of the electricity would be roughly comparable to a diesel bus.

This isn’t an immediate improvement in carbon terms, but at least it’s not significantly worse, whilst still delivering the localised air quality improvements of ‘zero-emission’ vehicles. Also, a slight increase in the amount of renewable electricity feeding into the grid would make such a bus lower carbon than diesel, whereas we’ll be waiting a long time for that to be true of electrolysis hydrogen.

Additionally, many of the problems of hydrogen as a vehicle fuel – lack of drive range, the need for specialised refuelling staff, etc – that the CUTE trial surmounted also apply to electric vehicles but would be solved by CUTE’s approach.

Impacts of making the technology

The average operating time for a bus in the CUTE trial was 2,300 hours(20). I understand that this is nearing the limits of a fuel cell’s life. The industry wants to get fuel cells up to around 4,000 hours of use, but seems to be struggling to get far beyond 2,000 hours(21). So, as well as the great expense of manufacturing the buses – both financially and environmentally (they have twice the impact of making a diesel bus(22)) – there is the cost and environmental impact of frequently replacing the fuel cells.

The London bus operated for an average of 7.952 hours a day(23). To keep the maths simple, let’s call that eight hours. Let’s say it only runs five days a week. Let’s also assume that the fuel cells meet the industry aim of 4,000 hours of life. Forty hours a week means a hundred weeks. So, even with these very generous assumptions, that’s less than two years of service.

Again, I’m ignorant of matters concerning electric buses, but I imagine they’d last longer than a year or two before needing inevitable major work doing on them.

Liquid hydrogen as a combustion fuel

The forthcoming second London hydrogen bus trial is not only to use fuel cells, but also buses run on liquid hydrogen as a combustion fuel. This is probably the least efficient and highest carbon fuel you could find.

If they're going to go down the same route as BMW - and it seems the only way to have enough drive-range with such an inefficient use of fuel - then compressed hydrogen doesn't contain enough energy and it will be liquefied. Not only do liquid combustion vehicles use more hydrogen than fuel cells, but the liquefaction process is incredibly energy intensive.

To be liquefied, hydrogen must be cooled to minus 253 degrees centigrade. It takes 12.5-15kWh of electricity to liquefy 1kg of hydrogen(24).

12.5-15 x 480g/kWh = 6-7.2kg CO2 emissions per kg hydrogen.

Let’s be generous and assume the bus will achieve the same consumption figures as its fuel cell cousin, 4.2km/kg.

6-7.2 divided by 4.2 = 1429-1714g/km for liquefaction.

So, even if the hydrogen itself were made of thin air and utterly carbon-free, a bus using liquid hydrogen is responsible for nearly three times the emissions of a diesel bus simply for the liquefaction process.

I note that, incredibly, the hydrogen used in London’s part of the CUTE trial had been liquefied and then returned to its gaseous state(25). This was a massive waste of energy and a serious contribution to climate change.

Add the liquefaction to the emissions from manufacturing hydrogen and we get this;

2167 + 1429-1714 = 3596-3881g/km for liquid hydrogen from natural gas.
6400 + 1429-1714 = 7829-8114g/km for liquid hydrogen from national grid electrolysis.

The actual amount of hydrogen consumed is even greater that that, though. Keeping hydrogen at minus 253 degrees between manufacture and dispensing is very energy intensive, and the figures above don’t include anything for that.

When it’s on a small vehicle there isn’t an energy source that can do that sort of refrigeration, so it’s in a highly insulated tank. This cannot stop it warming, only reduce the rate. As the hydrogen warms it returns to gas, increasing pressure in the tank. To avoid explosion there is a valve, rather like the one on petrol tanks to prevent explosion if you’ve left your car parked in blazing sunshine.

The problem is, liquid hydrogen regards anywhere above minus 253 degrees as blazing sunshine. It would continuously be jettisoning this high-carbon fuel. A report on BMW’s liquid hydrogen car found it ‘begins to boil after 17 hours if the car remains parked. The tank empties completely after 10 to 12 days’(26).

The EU’s encouragement

The CUTE Project is co-financed by the EU, and is so integral to the EU’s transport vision that the European Commission’s Director General for Energy and Transport, Matthias Ruente, wrote a glowing preface to one of the major reports on the outcomes of the trial.

He criticises oil-based fuels ‘that provoke climate change’ yet – at the front of a report proving the opposite - he tells us hydrogen is ‘at the heart of a zero emissions transport system that would de-couple mobility from climate change’. This, he qualifies, is once we’ve overcome the ‘challenge’ of producing hydrogen ‘with minimal or no negative environmental impact’(27).

I would reiterate that I am not a professional in researching this subject, but nonetheless from all the figures I can find, including those from CUTE, it seems to me beyond doubt that hydrogen buses lead to a massive increase in carbon emissions. To instigate a switch to hydrogen in the hope that an as yet unthought-of method of making it with minimal environmental impact will turn up soon is an act of grossly irresponsible blind faith. If what we’re proposing doesn’t improve on what we’ve got, it’s not a solution in any sense of the word.

It is surely absurd that, in the same project that grasps the nettle and legislates to reduce carbon emissions from cars, the European Commission is also pushing for an increase in vehicle emissions by promoting hydrogen(28).

The lesson is clear

A bus that is responsible for many times the carbon emissions of a diesel bus clearly has no part in any sustainable or responsible policy. This would have been clear about hydrogen before the CUTE trial, but is now proven by it. As these data show that it vastly increases carbon emissions, the forthcoming London trial of hydrogen buses should be cancelled. How can it make sense for the EU to fine car manufacturers for not decreasing emissions whilst paying bus operators to increase them?

Repeatedly portraying hydrogen buses as environmentally beneficial - the bus trials are referred to as one of Transport for London’s ‘key environmental achievements’(29) - is a fraud. Even if you were to dismiss me and my figures as a load of nonsense and judge the CUTE trial solely by its own published results, you would surely reach the same conclusion.


===============

References

1- http://www.fuel-cell-bus-club.com/index.php?module=pagesetter&func=viewpub&tid=1&pid=12

2- CUTE A Hydrogen Fuel Cell Bus Project in Europe 2001-2006: Vision, Teamwork and Technology. Detailed Summary of Achievements, May 2006, figure 3.3.8, p67
http://www.fuel-cell-bus-club.com/modules/UpDownload/store_folder/Publications/DETAILED_SCREEN.pdf

3- IPCC Special Report on Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage, Cambridge University Press, 2005, p 13
http://arch.rivm.nl/env/int/ipcc/pages_media/SRCCS-final/IPCCSpecialReportonCarbondioxideCaptureandStorage.htm

4- CUTE, Project No.NNE5-2000-00113 Deliverable No.8 Final Report, 30 May 2006, p55, Table 5.1.
http://www.fuel-cell-bus-club.com/modules/UpDownload/store_folder/Publications/CUTE_D8_Final_Report.pdf

5- Raymond Drnevich of major American hydrogen supplier Praxair, Hydrogen Delivery: Liquefaction & Compression, Strategic Initiatives for Hydrogen Delivery Workshop, US Department of Energy Office of Energy Efficiency, May 2003, p14
http://www1.eere.energy.gov/hydrogenandfuelcells/pdfs/liquefaction_comp_pres_praxair.pdf

6- DBERR, Fuel Mix Disclosure Data Table, 2006-07, table 3.
http://www.berr.gov.uk/energy/policy-strategy/consumer-policy/fuel-mix/page21629.html

7- National Atmospheric Emission Inventory, Vehicle Speed Emission Factors (Version 02/3). http://www.naei.org.uk/other/vehicle_emissions_v8.xls These are the figures used by government, as cited by transport minister David Jamieson in a parliamentary answer, 8 July 2004.

8- CUTE, Project No.NNE5-2000-00113 Deliverable No.8 Final Report, 30 May 2006, p60, Fig 5-17.

9- CUTE, Project No.NNE5-2000-00113 Deliverable No.8 Final Report, 30 May 2006, p58.

10- CUTE, Project No.NNE5-2000-00113 Deliverable No.8 Final Report, 30 May 2006, p60, Fig 5-17.

11- IPCC figure: Changes in Atmospheric Constituents and in Radiative Forcing, Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, p.212, Table 2.14
http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Print_Ch02.pdf

12- Dams And Development, p75, World Commission on Dams, November 2000 http://www.dams.org/report/contents.htm

13- Raising a Stink, New Scientist issue 2241, 3 June 2000
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg16622410.300-raising-a-stink.html
(paywalled: reproduced in full on World Commission on Dams’ site http://www.dams.org/news_events/media50.htm)

14- Decarbonising the UK – Energy for a Climate Conscious Future, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, 2005, p74
http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/media/news/tyndall_decarbonising_the_uk.pdf

15- CUTE, A Hydrogen Fuel Cell Bus Project in Europe 2001-2006: Vision, Teamwork and Technology. Detailed Summary of Achievements, May 2006, p.24

16- Wind Energy and Production of Hydrogen and Electricity — Opportunities for Renewable Hydrogen, US National Renewable Energy Laboratory, March 2006, p2
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy06osti/39534.pdf

17- DBERR, op cit

18- CUTE, Project No.NNE5-2000-00113 Deliverable No.8 Final Report, 30 May 2006, p60, Fig 5-17.

19- Alec Brooks, CARB's Fuel Cell Detour on the Road to Zero Emission Vehicles, Electric Vehicle World, 7 May 2004
http://www.evworld.com/article.cfm?storyid=691

20- CUTE, Project No.NNE5-2000-00113 Deliverable No.8 Final Report, 30 May 2006, p57.

21- Dr Sukhvinder Badwal, Fuel cells, Science on the way to the hydrogen economy, Australian Academy of Science, 5 May 2006
http://www.science.org.au/sats2006/badwal.htm

22- CUTE, Project No.NNE5-2000-00113 Deliverable No.8 Final Report, 30 May 2006, p61.

23- CUTE, A Hydrogen Fuel Cell Bus Project in Europe 2001-2006: Vision, Teamwork and Technology. Detailed Summary of Achievements, May 2006, figure 3.3.9, p67

24- Drnevich, op cit, p8

25- CUTE, Project No.NNE5-2000-00113 Deliverable No.8 Final Report, 30 May 2006, p40.

26- Bruce Gain, Road Testing BMW's Hydrogen 7, Wired, 13 Nov 2006
http://www.wired.com/cars/energy/news/2006/11/72100

27- CUTE, A Hydrogen Fuel Cell Bus Project in Europe 2001-2006: Vision, Teamwork and Technology. Detailed Summary of Achievements, May 2006, p.3-7

28- European Commission, Competitive Automotive Regulatory Framework for the 21st Century, 7 Feb 2007
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2007:0022:FIN:EN:PDF

29- Transport for London is helping the Capital to tackle climate change, TfL press release, 13 March 2008 http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/media/newscentre/archive/7728.aspx

criminalising unemployment

Jobless people are to be forced to work for their benefits.

the unemployed will be forced to undertake voluntary work including picking up litter and cleaning graffiti… they will have to work at least 30 hours a week.

Somebody buy that journalist a dictionary - how is forced work voluntary?

Anyway, Job Seeker’s Allowance is:

Person aged 16-17: £35.65
Person aged 18-24: £46.85
Person aged 25 or over: £59.15

(I love that – the same government that outlaws age discrimination for employers has three brackets of unemployment benefits and the minimum wage based solely on age. Which shops sell groceries cheaper to under-25s then?)

Someone 25 or over working 30 hours would be paid £1.97 an hour. The minimum wage is £5.52.

Given there are already people who remove graffiti and pick up litter but who'll now be unneeded, we can sack them, put them on the dole, then re-employ them on unemployment benefits at a third of the price. Bargain.

Who thinks this will be valuable work experience? What employer would look at a CV and say, 'well, I see you were forced to pick up litter for a month, that's the sort of person we want working for us'?

This isn't even attempting any training. It's a punishment and a deterrent; it's a sentence. It is, in fact, exactly what people are sentenced to on community service. We are equating long-term unemployment with criminality.

The same shake-up attacks Incapacity Benefit claimants too.

In February government welfare adviser David Freud suggested less than a third of the 2.7 million people claiming the benefit were doing so legitimately.

Every single person on Incapacity Benefit has been signed off by their GP, a fully qualified doctor, someone who - unlike Mr Freud - actually has examined them and is trained to judge. Anyone then found to be near to the borderline is further examined by a government doctor.

There are surely some scammers, but to say the overwhelming majority are fraudulent is a huge slur on a serious proportion of GPs and all of the government doctors.

Do we really think they’re all so easily hoodwinked? Or is this just paving the way so that when we hear of the sick and unemployed being victimised and undergoing privation we feel like they've got it coming?

Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell says of the new regime

one of the revolutionary things that happen is that we will be using the benefits that we would have spent if people had stayed on the benefit... to get them back into health and back into work.

It’s not just using the benefits that would’ve been spent, it’s plainly forking out a lot more than that.

After a year of claiming unemployment benefits, people will be handed over to private firms... Firms successfully returning people to the workforce for the long-term will receive bonuses of up to £50,000.

That - just the bonus, before the firm's standard fees - is equivalent to over 16 years of Job Seekers Allowance. Do we really think that’s value for money? Or does the government just feel better giving the benefits budget to wealthy private firms instead of poverty stricken individuals?

All of this comes in the same week that unemployment rose again. There are already 1.6 million unemployed and it's rising.

Given the economic forecast, it's only going to rise further, so why the musical chairs? Why are people being penalised for not having a job when there's not the jobs to fill now, let alone in the darker times to come?

If there's more people than jobs and that's always going to be the case, what do we do with the spare people?

We can't let them starve, not only because it's more humane not to make people destitute but because it's cheaper. Penniless people would be more likely to rob the rest of us, and then there'd be the cost of court cases and incarceration.

It would be cheapest to let those content to live on the lowest benefits stay there unfettered. Job-finding help could then be focused on those actually wanting jobs. Instead we’re unshakeably committed to spending a lot of money attempting to force people to do things they don't want to.

If there were full employment there’d be a case for forcing people into work, but as it is and seemingly shall ever be, there are a lot of unemployed people. Making them demean themselves by playing musical chairs for jobs and then treating those who don’t get one same way we treat minor offenders is expensive and cruel.

god save the queen

As the head of the Commonwealth, the Queen has her face on a lot of stamps.

I'm happy to report that she's now been relegated to - literally - a small cameo compared to the full colour glory of Kenneth Williams, a far better class of old queen.



Royal Mail explain that

People flocked to the cinema in droves, attracted by the imagery they saw on the film posters

Indeed, who could see Kenneth Williams on that poster holding his big stiff prick all ready to squirt and not want to go into a darkened room with him for an hour and a half of giggles?

Thanks to the post office you can now take him home, turn him on his front and lick at his back side until he gets all sticky.

stop burping, stop climate change

Last year's Guardian Climate Change Summit was sponsored by greenwash kings and carbon whores Shell.

Hard to top that, but this year they managed it, getting the people who want to build the first British coal-fired power station in a generation, E-On.

The Summit was held last Wednesday, with the uninvited presence of 40 Greenwash Guerillas.



Among other things, the protesters dished out bottles of Ev-Eon, a spoof E-On product that says it's water carbonated with captured CO2 from coal-burning. Very high production values, very witty stuff.

There's the art. Time for life to imitate. News that China is to build several power plants with carbon capture and storage means they could be the first country to have a full-scale CCS plant. But hang on, where will they put the captured CO2?

The 3,000 tonnes extracted each year, starting this July, will be used to carbonate fizzy drinks, the company said.

So that's alright then. As long as the people drinking it never belch or otherwise exhale the carbon dioxide, everything'll be fine.

This isn't 'carbon capture and storage', it's carbon capture and then release.

To be fair, that's their small plant that's opening this summer. But the commercial scale plant that's hoping to be running by 2013

is located near an oilfield, so some carbon dioxide will be used to enhance recovery of crude

This means they get oil that would otherwise have stayed in the ground, which will release massive amounts of CO2. And as much of that will be vehicle fuel, we can be sure there's no chance of any carbon capture with it.

But anyway, the fizzy drink stuff set me thinking, is this normal? Where does the carbon dioxide in drinks and fire extinguishers and whatnot come from?

Given that it's only around 400 parts per million of the atmosphere and that filtering it out of the air is one of the holy grails of climate technofixes (Branson's offering 25 million dollars to anyone who can make it work), it must be coming from some more carbon-rich source. What else is that going to be than fossils?

Blogger supreme Jim Bliss is not just the guy you need when you've got a question about oil or want to know about Talking Heads. Bizarrely, he's also a former international jetsetting engineering guy who used to set up factories, including a number of soft drinks facilities, around the world.

Sounds really weird, and I can't help suspecting it was a cover for his assisting De Burgh to prepare the way for global lizard domination, but it's true. So I asked him.

Soft drinks plants almost always buy CO2 in bulk (rather than manufacture it on-site, though that is done very occasionally). However, as far as I know, all industrial CO2 production is done by capturing the CO2 generated from other processes. Nobody burns natural gas in order to *just* produce CO2.

When I was working in the US, we were sourcing our CO2 from two companies. One was a manufacturer of food additives and preservatives (CO2 is a by-product of sodium phosphate production). The other was a fertilizer company who captured some of the CO2 generated during ammonia production in order to sell it to soft-drinks companies.

In that case, natural gas would indeed have been the initial source (being the main feedstock when it comes to fertilizer production), but in fairness the CO2 produced by that fertilizer company would have been vented to atmosphere if the soft-drinks industry didn't make a certain amount of CO2 capture profitable for them.

Which raises the question, what's sodium phosphate, Jim?

Sodium phosphate is one of the more common food preservatives used in the US (and I assume elsewhere, though I've not looked into that). It's basically a slightly modified form of ordinary salt (retaining the preservative, and blood-pressure heightening, powers of normal salt but with a significant loss of taste... so you can use more of it without it making the food taste "too salty").

As I understand it, health-wise it's no worse (or better!) for you than bog-standard salt, but I've not really looked into that.

Anyone know if this is typical sourcing for CO2 production?

And then that led me to think, what about nitrous oxide? The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change say it has a climate impact 298 times stronger than carbon dioxide.

When you hear a balloon being filled at a festival so that someone can get a little fuzzy hit that's scarcely a rung up from poppers, they're releasing the equivalent of 298 balloons of CO2.

How bad should they feel about it? What's the raw material - is it also a negligably priced by-product that'd be vented anyway or is it specially made?

Well Jim?

Not really sure about it. I know you can make nitrous oxide by heating ammonia nitrate - a fertilizer - but I've no idea if that's how it's done on a large scale (note: attempts to heat ammonia nitrate can go very badly wrong if you don't know what you're doing... not one to try at home unless you invite an industrial chemist over).

Indeed, as I understand it the major part of nitrous oxide emissions is from fertilisers.

But for industrial and munter uses, what's the feedstock? Anyone know?

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UPDATE: After some trawling and discussion with others more knowledgeable, it appears that the feedstock for modern nitrous oxide production is ammonia from natural gas and/or oil. It is also not produced as a usable by-product in any quantity, so responsibility for its climate impact lies squarely with the end user.